No free pass for rookies Hank, Girardi
Transition period.
George Steinbrenner's flesh and blood actually said the T-word and the P-word back to back. In the days before Joe Girardi was named as Torre's replacement, Hank hoped aloud that a culture of patience and perspective would greet the new man.
Steinbrenner's elder son would eventually run a 4.3 forty away from those words, and for good reason:
Any transition period in the Bronx could be measured against the expansion of a dynasty in Boston.
The Yankees will open the season Monday against Toronto, the final season in their grand old ballpark, and they will do so with an urgency they'd never find in a spring training dustup with the unworthy and unwashed Rays.
These aren't the early weeks of 2005, when the Yankees could dismiss Boston's breakthrough championship in '04 as a magic carpet ride. The Red Sox have won two of the last four World Series titles. Of more consequence, that would be two more than the Yankees have won over the last seven seasons.
Boston isn't chasing ghosts anymore. The Yankees are the new haunted souls of the American League East, the contender that can't negotiate its way out of the first postseason round.
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Tuesday's action
- Phils hang on against Braves
- Indians get another shutout
- Mets get one back vs. Nats
- Orioles rough up Beckett
- Pads' Estes get rare win
- Reds' Volquez keeps rolling
- Gagne saves game vs. Dodgers
- Jays get rare outburst of runs
- Royals rally past Tigers
- Vazquez pains M's again
- Rays top Yankees in 11
- Bucs erupt in 10th, top Cards
- D-backs get jump on Rockies
- Angels blank White Sox
- Giants cool off Astros
More on MLB:
- Rosenthal: Reds may be dealing soon
- Kernan: Goose is mad about Joba
- Perry: The 25 percent awards
- Perry: Great new era for catchers
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The Yanks are the obsessed ones now. "Red Sox Nation? What a bunch of (expletive) that is," Hank Steinbrenner told The New York Times' Play magazine.
"Go anywhere in America and you won't see Red Sox hats and jackets, you'll see Yankee hats and jackets. This is a Yankee country. We're going to put the Yankees back on top and restore the universe to order."
Yes, Hank's was a quick transition from the transition period.
At Yankee payroll prices, there can be no rebuilding, no pleas for level-headed observation. That mission statement the Yanks forever talk about — winning the whole thing, year after year — doesn't reserve room for a slow, natural progression back to a parade.
So Hank and Girardi don't get a pass in their rookie campaigns, not when their franchise is this desperate to recapture the upper hand in the game's bloodiest rivalry. Hank and Girardi face a far more ominous challenge than the one presented Hank's father and Girardi's predecessor in the spring of '96.
Back then, Boss Steinbrenner took serious heat for dumping the popular Buck Showalter and replacing him with the thrice-fired Torre, this after the Yankees reached the playoffs for the first time since 1981.
But the Yankees hadn't won it all since '78, and they were first-round losers to Seattle in '95. The Yankees hadn't yet become the Yankees again. Derek Jeter hadn't settled in at shortstop, and nobody outside of Old Tappan, N.J., had ever heard of a young and opportunistic outfielder named Jeffrey Maier.
Expectations were modest. In fact, most observers figured Torre would be a .500 manager at best. And then somehow, some way, Torre's Yanks claimed four out of five championships, including three in a row. Even better, Boston still hadn't won a damn thing since 1918.
Now up is down and east is west. The Red Sox represent the world's leading superpower, and the Yankees only lead the league in one offensive category: wages paid.
Hank and Girardi need to dramatically alter the Division Series dynamic that has prevented the Yankees from winning a single playoff series since their 2004 ALCS meltdown against the Red Sox. They need to develop their young pitchers faster than young pitchers often take to develop, and they need Alex Rodriguez to do for his postseason legacy what his boyhood hero, Dan Marino, never did for his.
More than anything, Hank and Girardi need to identify a vulnerability, an area of attack, in a New England program beginning to look as frighteningly efficient as Bill Belichick's — pre-Super Bowl, of course.
Not that the Yanks could ever embrace the Lake Placid approach that drove the football Giants to their forever night in the desert lights. No matter how many kid pitchers they throw out there, the Yankees will never be anyone's idea of a zillion-to-one underdog.
But they can't be taken seriously as a World Series favorite, not when the Red Sox are still dressing David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, and still growing young prospects like Jonathan Papelbon, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, and still employing their former Marlins ace, Josh Beckett, after the Yankees had to write off theirs, Carl Pavano.
The Red Sox have become the Yankees, and the Yankees have become the Red Sox, and Hank and Girardi will have a hell of a time reversing the damage. They didn't land the big pitcher, Johan Santana, who could've flipped the division on its ear, leaving him for a team (the Mets) that hadn't already shelled out $275 million-plus for A-Rod.
George and Torre would've ended up with Santana; Hank and Girardi are putting their money on Phil Hughes. Joba Chamberlain will start the year in the bullpen, even though one of Hank's very first acts in his father's role was to declare Joba a starter for sure.
Whatever. The new boss and the new manager remain joined at the hip in pursuit of the Red Sox. Hank says he loves Girardi's hard-guy act, a not-so-subtle jab at Torre's avuncular approach in the clubhouse.
Steinbrenner's son won't be a fan for long if Girardi's state-trooper style doesn't close the distance between Boston and the Bronx. Like an affection for racehorses, impatience runs in the owning family's blood.
George Steinbrenner always thought a transition period was the time spent between the last out of October and the ceremony at city hall, and Torre readily accepted that term of engagement.
Now Hank and his manager confront a bigger obstacle on their way back to a ticker-tape rain. These days, the only team worthy of being called an evil empire is based 200 miles north of the Bronx.
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